French Fruit Tart

I love the color of fruit tart, and I love the taste of it too. This tart has two textures, the filling is the baked custard with fruits, and the top is the fresh fruits. The original recipe come from the book

This tart is very easy to make, the custard filling is great, especially when you plan to serve it in the hot weather. It’s good for prepare ahead menu too, because you can bake the custard (in the tart pastry) then keep it in the fridge and decorated it just before serving.

Feel free to use any kinds of the fruit that you like, I made two tarts, the one is berry (that I show you), and the other one is banana. I use the banana instead of the berry, and eat it with sweeten whipped cream and caramel sauce. It’s very delicious that me, by brother and sister finished it very quickly (I didn’t have a chance to take a photo.

French Fruit Tart
Makes 2x (18 cm) tarts

Pâte Sucrée
200 g	Cake flour (or pastry flour)
120 g	Butter
80 g	Icing sugar
2	Egg yolks
10 cc	Milk

Cream Filling
1	Egg
1	Egg yolk
50 g	Caster sugar
125 cc	Milk
125 cc	Whipping cream

Fruit
300 g	Blackberry
300 g	Blueberry
400 g	Strawberry
4	Kiwi

Apricot glaze
100 g	Apricot preserves

Making Pâte Sucrée:

Sift the flour. Set aside.

Beat the butter until softened, add icing sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, beating just until incorporated. Add the flour all at once and mix just until it forms a ball. Don’t overwork or pastry will be hard when baked.

Flatten dough into disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.

Have ready 2 x (18 cm) tart pans with removable bottom. Cut the pastry in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each half of the pastry into an 25 – 27 cm circle that is about 3 mm thick. To prevent the pastry from sticking to the counter and to ensure uniform thickness, keep lifting up and turning the pastry a quarter turn as you roll (always roll from the center of the pastry outwards to get uniform thickness). To make sure it is the right size, take your tart pan, flip it over, and place it on the rolled out pastry. The pastry should be about an inch larger than pan.

When the pastry is rolled to the desired size, lightly roll pastry around your rolling pin, dusting off any excess flour as you roll. Unroll onto top of tart pan. Never pull pastry or you will get shrinkage (shrinkage is caused by too much pulling of the pastry when placing it in the pan). Gently lay in pan lightly press pastry into bottom and up sides of pan. With a thumb up movement, again press dough into pan. Roll rolling pin over top to get rid of any extra pastry. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes to chill the butter and to rest the gluten.

Make the cream filling:

Preheat the oven to 180º C

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl.
Cut some of the fruits (except the kiwi) into small pieces, then place in the tart.
Pour the filling into the tart.
Bake for 40-50 minutes or until the filling almost set(you may have to cover the tarts with foil after baking for 25 minutes).
Let the tarts cool on the wire rack.

Make the Apricot Glaze:

Heat the apricot preserves in a small saucepan over medium heat until liquid. Remove from heat and strain the jam through a fine strainer to remove any fruit lumps.

Cut the fruits into pieces and put over the tarts, brush with apricot glaze.